Current systems and methods for deploying and/or operating a wireless communication network in a private residential neighborhood or a multi-unit building generally rely on placing a wireless router (e.g., access point) in each individual unit. As used herein, multi-unit buildings may be single floor or multi-floor buildings, and include buildings containing apartments, offices, condominiums, dormitories, etc., as well as referring to buildings such as hotels, motels, inns, shopping malls, and similar structures. One of the problems with the approach used by current methods is that wireless routers are typically designed to provide coverage of an area that is much larger than an individual unit. Consequently, there is significant bleed over of signals into neighboring units, both on the same floor and on neighboring floors. Such an arrangement compromises the privacy and security of the user of a unit's router and may also lead to interference between the wireless routers used in different units.
Furthermore, if a unit's user (i.e., the owner, renter, resident, office worker, guest, etc.) has a wireless device in his unit (e.g., a wirelessly-controlled thermostat, refrigerator, light, or other similar appliance or device) which he controls from his mobile apparatus (e.g., cell phone, laptop, wireless electronic tablet, etc.) his control of that wireless device may be partially or totally impaired once the user exits the coverage area (e.g., “cell”) of his unit's particular access point (“AP”).
Additionally, there is a need to prevent one user from seeing a neighboring user while still allowing each of the users to access authorized networks (e.g., a server and/or a router to the internet) as well as allowing each user to access only his/her authorized wireless devices (e.g., user A can access his wireless thermostat but cannot access user B's thermostat). Moreover, it would be advantageous for each user to access his/her authorized wireless devices from a location that is outside of the range of his unit's particular AP. On top of all this, the building owner may desire to operate a network separate from the user network such that the building owner can access the internet and/or a server and any user and/or any user's wireless device while the users are prevented from accessing anyone other than the building owner's designated representative (e.g., a system operator).
Accordingly, there is a need for a solution to the problems described above associated with current methods for deploying and/or operating a wireless network in a multi-unit building.